Buried treasure

I'm  a little embarrassed to show you the state of my studio right now, but here it is.

Things have gotten out of control in every single corner.

In order to stop my creative mess from taking up permanent residence in the kitchen, and to spare myself the shame of becoming an episode of Hoarders, I am cleaning, purging, and reorganizing.

Deciding what to keep and what to share and what to simply dump.

What I thought would take a couple of days, is going to take a while longer. Because this is also a process of discovery.

In one cluttered cabinet, I uncovered a sheet of Robert Dansik's Faux Bone -- a material I have been wanting to play with -- and his book, and I had to stop and make this amulet for K.

And then I found this sweet little falling-apart book with the name "Ella" on the cover.

Not everyone knows someone named Ella, but I do, so I made another detour in my cleaning, purging, reorganizing, to bind the covers into a journal for her.

And then I found this letter "J" that J's mother asked me to make when he was born . . . seven months ago. 

Clearly, this is going to take a little longer -- but be a little more fun -- than I had planned.

Summer Solstice Rising

 Once again, it's been over a month since I've added anything to this blog, and I have a good number of things to share with you.

The first is this book I made as a gift for my aunt and uncle's 50th anniversary.

Lots of friends and family attended their party in Missouri. I was there too, but you wouldn't know from my photos, because I didn't take any. Sigh. I need to work on that.

This book was commissioned as a wedding gift. 

This is one of several books that I shipped to Australia. I haven't made one of these wooden books in years, but it must be like riding a bike.

Thanks to Daniel Essig's fantastic teaching and wonderful handouts.

I even got to take some newborn photos last month! Isn't she the sweetest thing?

Look at that adorable little mouth! 

She even modeled headbands for me.

My Etsy shop has been restocked with headbands and head wraps.

Which satisfies my sewing itch.

This one stayed with Soph.

And this one went home with Hannah, who has her own way of wearing it.

It was nice to see that the wraps worked on a three-year-old's head . . . 

As well as on a newborn.

Thank you, Dani Archer for the adorable photos!

And thank you, Cristen at Sweet Pickle Pictures! This pale pink head wrap is one of my favorites.

Last, but certainly not least.

This apron made by my friend Joanna Pierotti arrived from Arizona. Could you just squeal? I absolutely love it, and put it on my dress form so that I could admire it even when I'm not wearing it. Joanna sells out of these aprons as fast as she makes them, so I hope that you are as fortunate as me in acquiring one.

Ignore the mess of my studio behind it. That's my project for the rest of the month.

Happy Summer Solstice!